● The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There
Owen Zidar and Eric Zwick
Review via Planet Money
Who is rich in America, and how did they get there?
That’s the central question of an eye-opening new book, The Everywhere Millionaire, by two economists who have spent more than a decade researching the wealthiest Americans. Their answer challenges the popular narrative that America is in a new Gilded Age dominated by a small number of spectacularly rich billionaires.
Look beyond Silicon Valley. Look beyond Wall Street. There’s a much larger class of wealthy Americans hiding in plain sight. They’re all around the country. And, often, they got rich in mundane ways. They own car dealerships. They sell hot dogs and frozen mini-quiches. They run waxing salons. They supply fabricated metal and urinal cakes. They are dentists.